This is an iOS thing ... apps can only run in the background for a specific amount of time (20 minutes?) before they are shut down. So you have to leave the TiVo app front-and-center for the download to complete.

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Which is why their very own podcast app is completely useless. Before I got my Stream I was watching Tech News Today on my iPad in bed. When it podcast app was released I downloaded it immediately and set it up to "automatically" download the newest episode every day. However it never worked. Unless I manually launched the app every day it wouldn't get the newest episode. So I finally gave up on it and went back to downloading it manually.

Which is why their very own podcast app is completely useless. Before I got my Stream I was watching Tech News Today on my iPad in bed. When it podcast app was released I downloaded it immediately and set it up to "automatically" download the newest episode every day. However it never worked. Unless I manually launched the app every day it wouldn't get the newest episode. So I finally gave up on it and went back to downloading it manually.

Dan

I quite using the Podcast app because it stinks and doesn't sync correctly.

As far as background downloading goes Apple can do whatever they want. If they want their app to download in the background for 10 minutes or 2 hours they can do it. They have access to the full system where normal developers don't.

Which is why their very own podcast app is completely useless. Before I got my Stream I was watching Tech News Today on my iPad in bed. When it podcast app was released I downloaded it immediately and set it up to "automatically" download the newest episode every day. However it never worked. Unless I manually launched the app every day it wouldn't get the newest episode. So I finally gave up on it and went back to downloading it manually.

Dan

I highly recommend Downcast ($1.99). It was recently updated to support geofences to kick off background downloads when you enter/leave geofences. I have mine set to download whenever I arrive home, but you can set up to 10 geofences I think.

Even without that functionality, Downcast is a terrific Podcast app. The developer adds new functionality often.

This is not any 'intelligence' thing, well.. if it is, it is that of app writers. It is to SAVE YOUR BATTERY. It is so that the user does NOT have to do application management, so that badly behaved apps should not be able to run down your battery by continuing to run in the background (and leaking, etc.). Yes, there are still badly behaved apps, but that's presumably the reason for the time limit too.

Which is why their very own podcast app is completely useless. Before I got my Stream I was watching Tech News Today on my iPad in bed. When it podcast app was released I downloaded it immediately and set it up to "automatically" download the newest episode every day. However it never worked. Unless I manually launched the app every day it wouldn't get the newest episode. So I finally gave up on it and went back to downloading it manually.

Dan

Weird.. I listen to podcasts a lot, and thus am running it many times a day… So it is downloading new podcasts for me. (Yes, I know about bugs, but I have written them up.)

During download the iPad will stay awake with focus on the TiVo app... It has actually stayed live and on top since the first release.

But yes - plug it in, start your download and walk away...

Android and Windows 8 shouldn't have the same limitation.

This doesn't happen for me (my iPad screen doesn't stay active while the show is downloading). The iPad locks after a few minutes, the screen turns off, and then the downloading stops (not always, but most of the time). Very frustrating!

Also, when this happens it also often disconnects from my TiVo and I have to hit the reconnect button.

Are there any settings to help keep iPad "awake" during this (other than setting the screen to never lock?)

Does it have to be plugged in for the screen to stay active during downloads? (Is this why?)

iOS does not allow the iPad to continue any kind of downloading in the background when it is locked. This is primarily out of concern for battery life, whose maximization is a feature that Apple covets.

Supposedly, the upcoming iOS 7 will provide better options for managing background downloading tasks, but so far, I've only seen it on my iPhone 5 and not iPad. Alternatively, there are probably plenty of jailbreak options, but they also come at the cost of having to jailbreak your iPad.

The best advice I've found for downloading shows to an iPad is to plug your iPad in so the battery isn't drained while it downloads - the downloads can take a while since they're rather large files. Also, leave the TiVo app on the screen and just put down the iPad and go do something else for a while. Be sure to leave any covers that might automatically lock/unlock the iPad (like Apple's house cover) open so it doesn't cause the iPad's sensors to lock the iPad thinking it's closed.

Lots of old data here. You can download in the backgound on iOS 7 and above until you are finished. Why hasn't Tivo fixed this yet. I really don't want to sit around and look at the TiVo screen all day

Lots of old data here. You can download in the backgound on iOS 7 and above until you are finished. Why hasn't Tivo fixed this yet. I really don't want to sit around and look at the TiVo screen all day

Apple did open the policy up a little (very little), but the type of download TiVo is doing is still prohibited by Apple and most likely always will be.

It sounds to me that this is merely and excuse for TiVo not working correctly in the Eco system they are publishing an application in. While I am not sure the 'type' of download is being attempted, what I am sure is that this can be corrected by getting with the program and conforming to limitations of the environment. Not always, but by in large, I am pretty happy with iOS and what it offers. It seems to me that the onus is on TiVo to change the way they work not point the finger at iOS. If it means changing where and how file processing works and having the serving device become a straight file download, so be it.

Bottom line for me is that the way this works makes it's whole use pretty cumbersome. I'm less interested in excuses than I am in getting a more useful app.

After reading the Apple developer docs I don't think it's possible for TiVo to download in the background. TiVo isn't really downloading a file. They're downloading hundreds/thousands of files. The TiVo stream uses a technology called HLS, which basically breaks up the video into 10 second chunks, each it's own file. A playlist file is the only thing that links these files together as a single stream. The feature in iOS that allows downloads to continue in the background requires that you request permission for a specific URL when the app is closed. But because the video is being transcoded on the fly the URLs for most of the files in the video would be invalid at that point. There is a way to request permission from the OS for a new URL at a set interval, but it's like every 15 minutes, so the TiVo app would only be able to request permission to download a 10 second check every 15 minutes. It would take a loooooooong time to download a file that way.

That being said I'm not an iOS developer so there could be some trick I'm not aware of that would allow this to work, but based on my quick reading of the docs it doesn't look like it's possible.

If it does indeed work this way, how it works simply needs to change. A file stream can contain anything. A single open stream 'could' have multiple snippets in it, that look like little files to both the sender and receiver with no one being the wiser. The TiVo device just needs to pack these into a single open stream. Not a big deal at all.

Not really sure of any of the technical details of the devices or if this is the only roadblock, but this seems to be a solveable problem, with a little bit of work. My guess is this is all just piggy backed on how device to device playback works with little emphasis on how this should work best.

This can be fixed, it would greatly improve the app, and it should be. Even if it means changing the software on a device and/or having different devices perform slightly differently.

That's where another Apple limitation comes in. They require HLS for video streaming. So TiVo has no choice in the matter there. Now they could use a different format for downloads, as opposed to streaming, but that becomes an issue for the Stream hardware which would need to be capable of generating two different stream types. They would also need to use a different type of encryption, which they would have to get approved by Cable Labs.

Insisting that it "can be fixed" when you don't even understand the technology or the rules in place is a bit arrogant. I'm sure that if it were easy we'd have it by now. The TiVo app has had many major updates since it was released, and at least a half dozen since iOS7. I'm sure the TiVo engineers have looked into this. If it were just a simple change we'd have it already.